


i'm too old now, to be afraid

by goodbyechunkylemonmilk



Series: you looked as if you were going to cry and everyone was waiting and you didn't you didn't [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Codependency, Emotional Abuse, Familial Abuse, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Slash, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodbyechunkylemonmilk/pseuds/goodbyechunkylemonmilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius is afraid of heights, and he doesn't know how to change that, but he does know how to hide it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm too old now, to be afraid

**Author's Note:**

> References to abuse, self-harm, bodies, weight loss, not eating.

The first time Sirius climbs on a broom, he rises just off the ground, gets nervous, and tries to steady himself. When his feet find nothing below them but air, he panics and leans forward so fast that he falls off the broom even as it touches down, his arms reaching out for the steadying influence of the family garden.

He breaks his nose, and while his mother heals it, she lectures him about responsibility and respectability and what it means to carry on the Black name. This, he gathers, is not something he can do with a crooked nose.

He is eight and small for his age and has only just been deemed safe to ride a broom. Regulus, who is unfairly both taller and broader despite being two years younger, has had to wait because there's something untoward about doing this out of order. Sirius is older, so he must learn first. Regulus has been growing steadily more annoyed; if Sirius were him, he'd just sneak out at night and practice on his own, but Regulus is not him, is as obedient as he is surly, so he whines through dinner and keeps his feet planted firmly on the ground.

Sirius knows not to admit weakness, does not believe in weakness, does not know weakness except the salty sharp taste of dirt spat from his mouth. So he tells Regulus, who's been watching from the house, that flying is great.

Regulus is tall. He is tall, and if people came to their parties who didn't know the Blacks, he would undoubtedly be mistaken for the older son. Sirius will outgrow him later, will tower over the Marauders and have to crouch to fit under the cloak while Regulus stops growing at thirteen, short and thin with a perfect Seeker's build. In ten years when they are both falling apart, it will be more obvious on Regulus; people will look and see how he smokes and forgets to eat and doesn't sleep, shadows under his eyes and hollows in his collarbone. But for now, he is young and healthy-looking and healthy, and Sirius doesn't have to tilt his head back to meet his gaze but he does have to look up.

“You fell.”

Sirius says, eyes wide, “That's part of the fun.” This has implications, implications no one acknowledges because Blacks don't hurt themselves, but Sirius has seen the way his parents only seem properly alive when they fight. But Regulus has more bruises than make sense for such a careful child. But. But Sirius is too young for these thoughts.

“It looked like you were crying.”

Thinking of his mother's lecture, he says, as if imparting a significant fact of life, “Blacks don't cry.”

Regulus, who is not good at thinking on his feet, suddenly grows absorbed in looking at the ground. “Of course not.” If he were faster, cleverer, crueler, he would point out that he's seen Sirius cry before, that Sirius was clearly crying not half an hour ago, but he is himself and so he simply worries that his own teary tendencies will get him disowned.

Sirius would like to be kinder, would like to comfort his little brother, but he's skinned his knees and his eyes are red and he can still feel the phantom ache of snapped cartilage, so he just smirks and goes inside.

Even though the elder Blacks wouldn't be caught dead zipping around the countryside on brooms, they insist that Sirius learn because “Valuable alliances are forged in the Quidditch changing rooms.” So it is established early on that he will learn to fly, and he will be on the team, and he will be captain (he manages everything but the last, and they do not ever let him forget it). So the day after his disastrous first attempt, he is taken out again, and handed a broom, and told that this type of weakness is simply unacceptable. He lasts longer this time, hovers for more than thirty seconds before the feeling of nothingness below him makes his stomach roll. This time he manages to land on his own two feet, but immediately sours the victory by retching onto them. His mother steps back, her lip curling.

He doesn't cry, doesn't apologize, doesn't look at her, just grabs the broom from where he let it fall and climbs back on.

“I think you did a really good job,” Regulus whispers later, having sheltered in Sirius' bed, supposedly because of a bad dream, even though he's mostly grown out of his nightmares, or at least out of coming to Sirius with them.

“I told you not to watch. I looked stupid.” He has never faced something like this before, something he can neither easily overcome nor pretend is insignificant, and he doesn't want Regulus to see.

“You never look stupid.” Regulus moves closer, draping Sirius' arm over his shoulders. “You're my big brother.”

“That's not—” He means to mock Regulus' childish naivete, but he thinks, then, of how easily it will be stripped from him by screaming fights and disembodied elf heads staring at him from the walls, and stays quiet.

By the time Sirius gets on the Hogwarts Express three years later, he's learned to fly without clenching his eyes shut, and his parents have decided he'll be a Keeper, because the current Slytherin Keeper is a seventh year, and because the position requires less teamwork than most of the others. Sirius, like all Blacks, has little practice with teamwork.

His parents leave before the train does, and he is treated to the sight of the other boy in his compartment, James Potter, alternating between waving frantically at his own parents and trying to appear aloof. When they finally pull out of the station, James abandons all pretense of dignity and tears up without even bothering to look embarrassed about it. Sirius rolls his eyes, because the only other option is to stare enviously.

“So. Sirius, what do you like to do?” Then, in the awkwardly enthusiastic manner of someone unused to children his own age, James continues without waiting for a response, “I love Quidditch, don't you? I tried to sneak my broom in, but my mum caught me with it this morning, so when I want to fly I'll have to use the school brooms. I bet they're absolutely awful. I play Chaser. What about you?”

“I—” Sirius tries, before pausing.

And James doesn't know about everything that's happened, doesn't know that Sirius feels sick when his flexed feet can no longer brush the ground, doesn't know about tears and shame and how easily Regulus outflew him. “I love Quidditch too. How could I not?” It sounds like the lie it is, and he forces himself to breathe. James is happy and open and his parents are probably still standing on the platform craning their necks to see the train. And taken together, all of those things should make Sirius hate him, but instead he relaxes and says, “I play Keeper.”

"Great. We should practice together some time." James grins, wide and unguarded exactly the way they don't in the Black house, and Sirius can't help but join him, ignoring the knot of dread in his stomach; there will be time for that later.


End file.
